January 4th, 2009
If you think formula feeding isn’t “that bad”…
…then you just plain don't know any better.
This is just a teeeeny, tiny bit of education (you know.. research, data, cold hard facts) about how dumb it is to formula feed when you don't have to.
Wake up ladies! And settle in for a "tough love" rant about what you're really doing.
Yeah, yeah, I know the argument. I too was formula fed, and here I am alive and well. Maybe. I mean, how can I know that my mother didn't subject me to some predisposition to cancer because she refused to breastfeed me? I could be a ticking time bomb. Cancer runs in my family… my family of people who were never breastfed, by the way. Did you know that babies die every single year simply because they were not breastfed? Do you know how many illnesses breastfed babies are protected from? Do you know how much healthier breastfed babies are in the long run?
Do you know that some organizations like UNICEF killed a whole bunch of babies in Botswana by telling their HIV positive-mothers that they should formula-feed to avoid passing on the HIV? Yeah… boy oh boy did that backfire. The babies instead died in 20 times the numbers because of the other illnesses that breastfeeding would have protected them from. And what "they" found out was that there was only a 5% chance of even passing HIV to a baby through breastmilk… even less if the mother was treated with a simple drug.
Those organizations have now changed their position, and discourage formula feeding. It only took killing some kids for them to figure this out. Those poor people.
And I'm really so sick and tired of people saying that "formula is not rat poison." Okay, but you MUST know that it's not breastmilk either. And Pepsi isn't rat poison, but I sure as shit am not feeding it to my baby. That's an ignorant argument. Show me some research that formula feeding somehow benefits a baby, then maybe we can have a dialogue about it, but you're not going to find that research. Read the side of your can of formula. It TELLS you that you should be breastfeeding.
So why are people so quick to defend formula feeding? Heck… when I formula fed my first son I felt shameful. I surely wasn't defending it. I was a lactivist even then. I knew breast was better - I just didn't have the support the first time around to make it through the tough times. When Jonas was 4 months old, I wrote a letter to a Chicago radio-personality who said something on the air about breastfeeding in public being "illegal" in some states (which it freaking isn't, but he still refused to issue a correction because he said he was only reading what he was told to read, as though that makes it better… coward!)
Now… there are some ladies I love who chose to formula feed, and I certainly don't want to make anyone feel bad. But this is just something that I have to share. I believe babies deserve to be breastfed. They deserve our best… no matter how hard it may be. It's what we signed up for.
I urge those who feel like they can't do it; please, get support. Make it work. Your baby deserves their mama's liquid gold.
**Rant over. Exhale. **
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**edited for spelling; you konw how sometimes it's late, and words just don't look right to you? I think they call that dyslexia.
Click to Leave a Comment
ITA.
You know I’ve posted on the same topic recently.
What it comes down to for our family is that now, my husband is at a greater risk of dying because he was formula-fed.
http://offthespaceship.blogspot.com/2008/09/this-post-will-not-at-all-be.html
It scares the hell out of me. My husband survived war and the after-effects, but he may die because of a feeding choice made more than 30 years ago.
I don’t think we can truly argue about feeding choice when the vast majority of people are given misinformation or incomplete information from friends, family and even the medical community. How can one make an informed choice without the information?
[Reply]
I remember that post, and I agree wholeheartedly.
I know too much now to turn a blind eye.
[Reply]
Thanks for the link, and for the post. I was feeling a bit down about the Facebook thing this evening (I should know better than to read the comments on a NY Times blog post about this), and reading this cheered me up a bit.
[Reply]
Well, I hadn’t seen the hubbaloo on the NY times until I just googled it. Yes.. ignorant people indeed. But thankfully the deck seems to be equally stacked with people who realize that breastfeeding is important and NOT obscene. Usually you get 80% anti-breastfeeding a-holes on those things.
I posted a comment. We’ll see if they publish it.
[Reply]
I also think the “formula is not rat poison” statement is retarded. Lots of things aren’t rat poison—but it’s still not good for you. Many women just get defensive. They need to rationalize it to themselves.
[Reply]
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